I’m a really big fan of coffeecake in the morning. I usually make muffins, since they can be had in smaller, more weight conscious amounts. It’s just too easy to justify a “slightly larger” slice of cake in the morning when you’re breaking your fast.

But I was itching to try something new. Aside from the muffin recipe, my Baking Illustrated book has another sour cream-based coffeecake recipe for a more cake like creation. It was only a little more complicated (or so I thought from reading it through first), but should result with something very much like the muffins I have grown used to. However, as soon as I started into things, I realized that this was going to be an adventure.

For starters, the pan that the cake is to be baked in is something I had never heard of before. They described a metal tube pan (the kind with a post in the center), but with a bottom that was fixed, not removable like an angel food cake pan. Now, I’ve been to a number of “cooking stores” and in the last three months, I have yet to actually find one of these pans. However, I did have a comparable Bundt pan. The only problem was that the recipe laid out the cake such that it would end up right-side up going into the oven. A Bundt pan is rounded on the bottom, which meant that my cake would end up visually and physically a bit top-heavy.

I decided that it would be better if I sort of reversed the order of batter and streusel elements so that the cake went into the oven “bottom-up.”

The only other real problems I encountered while making this cake were that the recipe used an inordinate amount of bowls, and had a conflict in the cooling time listed. The first problem was probably more of an issue with the way I do things in the kitchen, and the later was fixed by going with the longer time (unless something is meant to be eaten at a certain temperature, it’s probably a safe bet to “go long” when cooling).

Here is the cake as it came out of the oven. In retrospect, I wish I had a way to stick with the top being the top, as they suggested in the recipe. The crumble streusel looked really nice.

Flipped and removed from the Bundt pan, you can see that the layer of streusel I put on the “top” had a tendency to slide down and form a ring rather than coat more of the top. This is a hazard of the more rounded pan I guess. Still, it has a nice shape.

I thought the cake seemed a little “flat” so I added an orange drizzle.

Overall, it was a little overcooked at the edges, so I would probably use my middle rack in the oven instead of the bottom one as the book suggests. I also think I would try to distribute the inner streusel filling a bit more throughout the cake (which was delicious) instead of just throwing it in as a layer. It’s just too good not to have it in every bite.